11-32-00 Stacksteads

Martins Bank’s sub-Branch at Stacksteads, looks almost as if it sits at one end of Coronation Street. Removal of the coal dust from the bricks might reveal something a few shades lighter, or even that gorgeous red brick favoured in this part of Lancashire. Stacksteads is lucky enough to have been open during the Second World War, staffed by one of the army of women clerks in charge that keep the Bank going, with Miss E M Law at the helm for four years. Considering that once the men returned from War, the Bank’s policy of dismissing women when they married was resumed would seem to us to be such a retrograde step.

In Service: 1911 until 9 May 1980

Image © Barclays Ref 0030-2757

You can read more about this in our MARTINS AT WAR section. By the 1960s, Stacksteads operates on a small number of staff, probably one plus a guard, with half an hour for lunch and 2pm closing time designed to ensure that work can be taken back to the main branch at Bacup without causing late working there. Barclays takes on Stacksteads in 1969, and the branch is kept open for a further eleven years.

A rare sight – a Branch cheque with a SUB-BRANCH designation

Image © Martins Bank Archive Collections

Naming a sub-Branch on printed stationery is not a common occurrence, normal practice would be to name only the parent branch, to whom all vouchers will be returned after use, prior to storage, destruction or return to customers with their bank statement. We think that perhaps Stacksteads sub-Branch, already important enough to have been kept open during the war, must have handled a large volume of cheques, perhaps from local businesses, and that having the sub-Branch name imprinted on them made them easier to separate out for the purpose of extra work undertaken for those customers…